Update: An update to this story - including a response from NASA - can be read here
Not content with a Boeing 757, a Boeing 767, and two Gulfstream Vs, Google's Willy Wonkas have now purchased a fighter jet. At least, it looks that way. The fighter is hidden behind the Chocolate Factory's wall of secrecy.
As first reported by …

COMMENTS

Alphe Jet?

I find it hard to see what kit, survaillance, avionic or otherwise, this aircraft could carry that other aircraft of similair types could not. It is certainly manouverable, having served in the Patroiulle de France (Hope thats spelt right!) the French aircrfat display team. The French Air Force and the German Lutwaffe used it as, (I believe ) an advanced trainer. That was in the 80s. It is hard to see what useful reconaissance work this aircraft could now do. Course, if it is a stand-by for when the Lotus/Porsche is gridlocked on the freeway, well, THAT'S all right then!! Gary

Ahh, but did you know that...

Re: Alpha Jet - Which Version ?

The German version of the Alpha Jet, I seem to recall, also had the capacity to be used as a light Ground Attack/Counter Insurgency (COIN) aircraft & as such, the wings had mounting points for weapon pylons, in addition it could carry under the fuselage, a pod mounted BK 27 cannon...

Maybe Google is doing low-level photo recon...

Next step....equipping their car and air fleet with advanced wall-penetrating infrared imaging systems so that you (and of course Google advertisers) can see what your neighbors are doing at all times. That way Google can serve up relevant advertising for condoms and toilet paper on your mobile when you are in various compromising positions.

Noise

Obviously the experiment in question is to see how much bloody noise they can make without people complaining.

I used to live in MV, right under part of the flight path for Moffet. I can attest to the fact that Tomcat's are f'ing loud. Basically, one of those goes over your house at 8pm and you know it and spend 20 mins picking up the books that fell out of the bookshelves. Not sure how they compare to this.

(Of course now I'm in Santa Clara and live under the SJC flightpath but thats *much* quieter than Moffet can be!)

Black helicopters since they fly those in and out of Moffet all the time.

Are they sure?

"The Gulfstream Vs are particularly interesting to us because they usually fly between 40,000 and 45,000 feet, which is higher than most planes fly and we'll be able to get very interesting data that we've never collected before at those altitudes."

When I was there around '74 they were flying a scientifically instrumented U2 which I believe they still have (but may not fly now due to the noise). I'm not sure I buy this line....

Wind that back a minute...

Where, in such a vast hi-technology empire, could they ever hide an army of diminutive, pasty-faced, asexual drones? Your thesis just does not hold up.

Show me the Oompa Loompas!

More to the subject, perhaps it is not NASA, but the american military complex that is allowing the ensconcing of the dornier. Perhaps they are using it to calibrate the AI on their super-snooper spy satellites to recognise the deceptively subtle build up of a rogue billionaire's private war machine. The Googlecrats are probably hollowing out a mountain as we speak - just so the four-stars can practice oppressing an army of hired goons.

The question is, do they go dormant south american volcano, or do they go skull shaped mountain on remote pacific atoll? Surely they wouldn't be so bold as to try for the visually spectacular, yet fatally fragile, arctic ice fortress? You wouldn't rule it out with the Googlelords, would you? All that talk about reducing cooling costs in the data centre...

Stuart on track...

Actually it is for when the 'credit crunch' becomes the 'google crunch' - and so that they can make a fast get-a-way... however it could also be that the google-net has become sentient and can now reliably predict earthquakes; giving the Wonkas time to evacuate.

"Like Nathan Myhrvold, the "anonymous" author of the Vanity Fair paean to his Gulfstream V, a lot of corporate ... go for the Gulfstream. Nike founder Phil Knight reportedly flies in a GIII or GIV. Steve Wynn, creator of Las Vegas's Bellagio hotel, reportedly owns three. Larry Ellison, like Myhrvold, prefers the GV, but his fleet's far larger. He owns a Marchetti training fighter and has expressed interest in piloting his own MiG-29, though the Feds haven't approved his right to tour the weapon through US airspace. Also in the Ellison fleet: a PC-7 turboprop trainer and a Cessna Citation 525 Twin Jet. "